


By Any Other Name

by ravenna_c_tan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Explicit Language, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sexual Content, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-12
Updated: 2006-05-12
Packaged: 2018-09-30 10:21:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10161059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenna_c_tan/pseuds/ravenna_c_tan
Summary: When he and Severus Snape flee Hogwarts at the end of book 6, Draco Malfoy finds himself thrust full-time into the world of the Death Eaters. Who can he trust? And what happens next?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from SeparatriX, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [HP Fandom](http://fanlore.org/wiki/HP_Fandom_\(archive\)), which was closed for health and financial reasons. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [HP Fandom collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/hpfandom/profile).

**Disclaimer** : I am merely a tourist here in J.K. Rowling's world. These characters belong to her and her publishers. I write this fan fiction as a way to participate in HP fandom and not as any kind of commercial enterprise.

By Any Other Name  
by Ravenna C. Tan

[This story takes place from the point in Half-Blood Prince where Snape and Draco flee Hogwarts. Where did they go? And what happened next? Draco is now thrust full-time into the world of the Death Eaters.]

Draco Malfoy hated the feeling of side-along appartion. The horrible squeezing sensation was somehow more bearable when he directed it himself, but he had no idea where they were going. Death Eaters were still shouting, a dog was howling, curses were still being flung everywhere, and Snape now had a death grip on his wrist and was pulling him at a full run toward the gates. He barely had time to take a breath before the potions master snapped them away from the chaotic scene, the disapparition so sudden that Draco found himself coughing when they appeared at their destination.

It took a few moments for him to shake the cough and then he looked around. They appeared to be in the parlor of a house. All was quiet. "Are we safe?"

"That depends on what you mean," Snape said as he set a few of the room's lamps alight with a bare flick of his wand. "For the moment, we are in no immediate danger. As to what will happen now that you and I will no longer have the safety of Hogwarts at our disposal, only Fate can tell."

"The safety... what do you mean?" If there was one thing Draco hated about Snape, it was the man's tendency to blather as if he always knew infinitely more than his listener and had no inclination to illuminate. It was a condescension Malfoy felt others might have deserved, but this past year Snape had turned that tone on him more and more often. It made no sense. Malfoy himself was a Death Eater now, why had Snape suddenly started treating him like a child? "If the Auror's had caught onto us..."

Snape turned on him, his wand tip raised between them like a scolding finger. "If! Yes, I daresay you'd be sharing a cell with your father right now if that were the case. But at least in Azkaban you'd be in no immediate danger."

"You just said we aren't in immediate danger." A glance around the room showed it to be an ordinary-looking, if slightly decrepit parlor. There was a loud crack outside the door, and another, then a third.

"That will be our cohort arriving," Snape said, his voice low and cold. "And you will quickly learn, young Malfoy, that there are many immediate dangers that come with being in the Dark Lord's service."

He went to the door and opened it, and three Death Eaters stumbled in. Draco saw, though he doubted anyone else detected, the slight relaxing of Snape's shoulders. Or maybe Draco imagined Snape looked as relieved as Draco felt that Fenrir, the werewolf, did not appear to be with them. 

"Here we are then, safe as houses!" said the stocky female with a cackle as if she had made a particularly good joke. 

"Yes, Alecto," Snape said. "I will set the wards. Malfoy, with me."

Draco welcomed the opportunity to get away from the others. The way his father had always spoken of being in the Dark Lord's service, it had never occurred to him that he might have to mix with such coarse people of low class. He followed Snape down the front steps of the house. Then again, the Weasleys were purebloods. The Carrows, Alecto and her brother Amycus, were little better. Wizarding blood didn't necessarily insure one of aristocracy. 

He followed Snape around the perimeter of the property, the picket fence in need of repair enclosing a small yard, as the professor spoke words of warding. Draco was about to open his mouth to ask where they were when Snape spoke first.

"Can you see the lines?"

If he looked sideways where they had walked, Draco could see a faint green glow, like a faraway star that you have to look to the side of to see in the night sky. "Yes, glowing green."

"Excellent." Snape gripped Draco's forearm, brushed back the robe, and touched his wand to the Dark Mark. Draco thought he saw some of the green glow travel down the wand and into his skin. 

"Hey, what are you...?"

"Listen to me, Draco. I swore an oath to your mother than I would protect you, but even my powers have limits." Snape glanced at the house, a three storey Victorian affair the same color as its slate roof. Lights were now burning in the upper windows. "Death Eaters are not like your feeble classmates. You will not be the prince of this gaggle..."

"Oh, and I suppose you are?" Draco cut in, tired of being spoken to like a child.

Snape's mouth twitched. "That is unlikely, though perhaps they will afford me slightly more credence now that I have done the deed."

Draco couldn't help but blanch a bit at the thought. The deed, of course, was the murder of Dumbledore. "And what about Him?"

"That, too, remains to be seen."

"Do you think He'll be angry that I didn't, that I wasn't..."

"This is not the place to speak of that." Snape glanced around once more, then shooed Draco toward the door. "But I do not think much happened tonight that the Dark Lord did not anticipate."

"You mean he knew I would fail?"

"The mind and feelings of the Dark Lord are not ours to comprehend," Snape said. "Let us find you a room."

* * *   
Draco found himself in an upstairs room, the bed set into the gabled alcove of the roof. Snape had conjured him a pot of chamomile tea, muttering something about the old potions being the best, and then left him there. Draco thought, though he was not sure, that the door knob had glowed briefly green as Snape had shut it behind him when he left.

Draco hung his robes in the empty wardrobe and sat on the bed. He loosened his tie. The green tie, shot through with Slytherin silver, seemed ridiculous now. He took it off and flung it away in disgust. It was no wonder Dumbledore had treated him like a schoolboy, and that Snape was continuing to do so. He got up off the bed then, took his wand from the bedside table, and pointed it at the tie.

"Obliteratus!" The tie shivered, blew apart into a million pieces which then dissipated like smoke. Draco smiled. That was not a schoolboy spell. Snape hadn't been such a mother hen when he'd taught him that one, had he?

Draco flung himself onto the bed. It was all to do with that damnable vow Snape had made to his mother. Narcissa had always babied him, and now she had convinced Snape to do so as well. It had been a disappointing year in that regard. Draco had looked forward to the private instruction he had been privileged with. Snape had taught him many dark spells over the years, and Draco had been an eager pupil. This year, Draco had anticipated getting into some truly dark subjects with his mentor. But it hadn't worked out that way. Snape had practically cut him off as far as dark magic was concerned, meanwhile Draco had refused Snape's help with his mission for the Dark Lord.

He took off his socks, his pants, but decided to leave his button down shirt as a dressing gown. He didn't like to see where there were still faint white scars on his skin, the result of that nasty spell Potter had unleashed in the bathroom a few months before. Sectum Sempra was no schoolboy spell either. Draco shivered.

The last thing he remembered from that horrible afternoon was feeling like a giant claw had just rent him from stem to stern and the look of absolute horror on Potter's face. Then he woke up in the hospital wing, Snape sitting there at his bedside. Draco had a nagging feeling there was something he had forgotten, something missing from his memory of those events. 

The teapot, in a ridiculously mundane white and blue cozy, sat on the side table next to Draco's wand. There was no way he was going to get to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Dumbledore, or Fenrir, or Potter's face. 

Well, if he wasn't going to fall asleep, what was the harm in drinking a little chamomile? He sat up, poured some into the china cup sitting there, and sipped it. Still passably warm. He wondered if the cozy were charmed. He drained the cup and lay back down. 

In minutes he was asleep, the tension and travails of the day finally draining away and leaving him only dreams.

* * *   
Next morning came a miserable breakfast, made worse by the argument that broke out among the Death Eaters over the fact that none of them had any skill with domestic charms whatsoever. Snape, at least, could make drinkable tea, something that Amycus proved unable to do. Two more Death Eaters had arrived during the night, so there were now six of them holed up in the house. Draco, the low man on the totem pole, was bullied into doing the dishes. He was up to his elbows in soapy water--he being no master of domestic charms himself--when Snape stood suddenly. 

"What are you waiting for?" he said to the others, who were still seated, finishing their burned toast. He tugged up his sleeve to show the Dark Mark, the blackness of it deep and glowing, crawling like a living thing on his skin. They stared at him.

"It's only you, Severus," said the gravelly-voiced man who had come in during the night. He had bushy, wild eyebrows and to Draco he looked like he could have been part owl, or hawk. "Only you are called."

Snape's cheek twitched unreadably and he shot a brief glance at Draco before he disapparated. Was that a glance of warning? Draco turned back to the sink.

"Yaxley," Alecto drawled to the bushy-browed man, "Have you met the boy here, yet?" Draco flinched as she snapped, "Malfoy!"

"So this is Lucius' son?" Yaxley inquired, as Draco reluctantly turned. "Quite a mess your father made of things, didn't he, boy?"

"I wouldn't know anything about that," Draco snapped, his lips tight. "Before my time."

Alecto chuckled, low in her throat. She was a squat woman, and Draco could not guess her age. "I suppose you think you'd've done better? But I think we all know the truth."

Her brother Amycus echoed her chuckle. "You Malfoys--always trouble. Always putting yourselves above the others. But you haven't got the stones."

Draco felt his face flushing, but really what could he say? They had all been there last night on the Astronomy Tower, when he had not killed Dumbledore. 

Alecto's smile twisted her lumpy features into a hideous mask. "I'm sure Snape's telling Him all about it right now. Do you think He'll be pleased with what He hears?"

"I... I fixed the cabinet. I'm the one..." Draco began, but Alecto cut him off with a hex.

"Desnudis totalis!" she cried with a flick of her wand as she rose from the table.

Draco's robes, his shirt, all his clothes, flew off like a flock of frightened birds. He threw his hands instinctively over his crotch. "What are you...!"

She cackled. "Time to teach you a lesson, Malfoy brat." She seized him by one arm; her brother, who was almost as squat as she, took the other, and they dragged him into the parlor, the others following. Draco found himself on his knees, his hands bound behind him by Amycus who pointed his wand and muttered simply "Cuffs." It felt as though his wrists were glued together. 

"Let's play a game," Alecto said. "Do you know the charm Conflagrius Animus, Draco?" she said, drawing out his name. "Little dragon, I'm surprised, you ought to like this one." She cast the charm and a tiny creature made of flames appeared in front of Draco on the floor. It was roughly dragon-shaped, about a foot tall. 

It belched flame at Draco, and he stumbled back, feeling slightly singed. His legs fell open and the creature lunged toward his crotch. Draco scrambled backward with a cry, the flame close enough to curl his blond pubic hairs. The flame dragon pursued him, and Draco struggled to get to his feet, but the Death Eaters who ringed him kept pushing him down. Alecto cackled as she directed the fire creature with her wand, a jet of flame catching Draco across the buttocks.

Draco bit his lip. He would not scream in front of these cretins. They thought him a coward and if nothing else he was determined not to give them that satisfaction. But then he stumbled and fell, and the thing lunged for his genitals again, and this time Draco did scream. He couldn't help it, with the feeling that teeth of flame were sinking into his balls, he screamed and kicked his feet.

Then the pain ceased, and he lay limp on the musty carpet. The creature had gone up in smoke. Draco looked up to see Amycus whispering something to Alecto.

Her laugh again was low. "Poor 'iddle dragon, plays with fire, gets burned," she said. "You should be grateful, Malfoy brat, for my brother here."

Amycus knelt at Draco's side and drew a vial from inside his robes. Draco heard Yaxley chuckle this time and he wondered what was in the vial. "Here you go, Malfoy," Amycus, said, pouring some of the liquid into his large, meaty palm. "Make it all better."

Before Draco realized what was happening, the squat wizard had smeared the liquid onto Draco's singed buttocks. He gripped Draco by the hair then, and continued the smearing between Draco's legs, until he had Draco's penis in his grip. His tugged and pulled on the soft flesh and to Draco's horror, he was beginning to harden.

The Death Eaters all laughed and one of them said "Like father like son, eh?"

That made Draco's ears burn, but what could he do? His wand was upstairs on the side table. He knew better than to mouth off now. Amycus was pumping harder now, while they all laughed louder. Draco's body writhed and he squeezed his eyes shut. The only thing he could do now was start plotting his revenge. Why wait until it was over?

In his mind, Draco's wand appeared magically in his hand. With an upward slash, he imagined casting the Sectum Sempra, slitting Amycus open from gut to throat. He barely felt the big hand pumping him, barely felt his own body trembling, shaking with tension and mounting arousal. He imagined the blood fountaining out of Amycus' throat and suddenly his own come fountained up out of him, spilling over the wizard's hand. 

"Ugh, what a mess!" Amycus said in an exaggerated voice, and his hand still held tight in Draco's hair, dragged him down. "Clean it up!"

He thrust his slimy hand into Draco's mouth and Draco gagged, struggling. He was simply not going to lick his own come off Amycus' hand, not willingly. The big wizard just laughed at Draco's struggles, though, and wiped what was left onto Draco's cheek, then threw him to the carpet. 

Yaxley stepped forward then. "A shame to waste all that pyranthus oil," he said, shrugging off his robes and loosening the belt on his trousers. "And such a lovely bum he's got."

"No!" Draco shouted, scrambling to his feet. He didn't care if fighting them was going to make it worse. 

Yaxley's trousers dropped to reveal a thick, veiny monstrosity that Draco barely recognized as a penis. "Come here."

Draco ran, right into the arms of Alecto, who had moved to block him. The others grabbed him, they were forcing him now to bend over a musty ottoman.

"What's going on here?" Snape was there. Snape, at last.

"Come on, Severus," Alecto sneered. "You want a taste of this?"

"Leave him alone!" 

"Oh, I know you," she hissed. "You want him all to yourself. Is that why you warded his door last night? Saving him for yourself?"

"Shut up, you miserable hag," Snape said, and with a flick of his wand they all fell back as if Draco's skin burned them. Draco curled over, holding his knees to his chest. "What I want is of no matter here. The Dark Lord requires young Malfoy's presence. Now."

Malfoy climbed to his feet, his hands free, and rubbed his arms with his palms. Snape waved his wand once more, and Draco found himself enrobed in an unfamiliar robe. And then Snape took him by the arm, and they disapparated.

* * *   
The new place was dark. They arrived somewhere utterly dark and close.

"Lumos." Snape's incantation revealed a square room, sparsely furnished with a bed, writing desk, wardrobe and a low bookshelf crammed with books. The walls were windowless stone, the floor covered with a fine, Persian-looking carpet.

Draco sat in the chair of the writing desk and wrapped his arms around himself. The sleeves of the robe were too long and his hands disappeared. He hugged himself tightly, thinking over and over, I will not cry, I will not cry.

Snape knelt by him slowly, as if he knew that too sudden a movement might shatter Draco's equanimity. "Are you hurt?" he asked in a soft voice.

"Th-they're... evil!" Draco said, which was not an answer, but seemed to be the only thing he could say. Snape, through sheer force of will, refrained himself from making a sarcastic rejoinder and settled for cocking one eyebrow slightly. "What, why..." Draco couldn't seem to form the question he wanted into words, and sputtered into silence instead.

"Evil comes in many forms," Snape said. "The Dark Lord does not favor such games himself, but he tolerates it, perhaps even expects it, in his followers."

"You mean power games?"

"I mean those that involve physical intimacy. The Dark Lord does not allow anyone to be that close to him. He delegates those tasks to others. Now, are you hurt?"

"Burned, a bit," Draco said, but made no move to show Snape his scorched skin. He could see the darkness in Snape's eyes turn a shade darker when he said the word "burned." "I'll be fine."

"How did ... you come to be burned?" Snape asked, still on his knees but now his arms folded over his chest.

"Conflagrio animus," Draco replied. "It's nothing, really." He forced himself to sound strong, almost cheerful. "Just a bit of a scorch here or there. I'll be okay."

Snape closed his eyes briefly. "Conflagrio... those burns will not heal normally, Draco."

For some reason, Draco started at the sound of his own name. So yesterday, in front of the others, he was Malfoy. At Hogwarts he had always been Mr. Malfoy. But here, today, alone with Snape, he was Draco. Snape was speaking so softly, Draco almost wished for the pedantic, lecturing Snape. Anything to return things to normal, or some semblance thereof. 

"Draco, please, let me see them." Snape said this without moving.

Draco thought of how last night, Snape had thought nothing of tugging Draco's sleeve up to bare his arm. He was making this the young wizard''s choice. But Draco did not want to bare his skin at that moment. "Must I?"

A little of the usual flint came back into Snape's voice. "The burns from conflagrio, if they are deep enough, will simply turn your body to ash while you sleep, if left untreated."

"Um, they rubbed... that is, there's pyranthus oil on my burns," Draco said, cheeks flaming as bright red as the animated dragon had been. He saw Snape's look darken further and stuttered "I-is that bad?"

"Pyranthus may have soothed the pain, but it has no true healing effects," Snape said, his lecture voice creeping back. "It can also have an aphrodisiac effect."

Draco let his arms fall in relief. "So it's not..." He knew the blush showed through his pale skin. It was the one drawback to the Malfoy skin. "I mean, I don't..."

"Draco," Snape silenced him with his name. "There's no need for embarrassment. Let me see the burns."

Draco stood, and fumbled getting the robe off. His cock was hard again but if that was the potion's doing, he could ignore it. He couldn't help thinking though, if there was no need for embarrassment, why was Snape so bloody high-strung? He let the robe fall to the chair, and pointed his eyes at the ceiling as Snape's hands turned him gently in place. 

"So where are we, anyway?" Draco asked, to have something to think about other than the fact that Snape's touch was cool and soothing, and that his cock's swelling was increasing. 

"Where I should have brought you in the first place," Snape replied. "Somewhere safe."

"And what about ... the Dark Lord?"

"Let us worry about one challenge at a time." Snape took a deep breath, drew his wand, and muttered a quiet incantation. He had one hand on Draco's hip, the other moving the wand through the air an inch from Draco's skin. The burns under Snape's wand tip disappeared.

Draco flinched. 

"What's wrong?" Snape looked up, alarmed.

Draco blinked. The feeling of déjà vu was so strong, Draco suddenly felt he had to sit down. He did, and stared into Snape's eyes. The memory came rushing back. "You healed me after the Sectum Sempra. Not Pomfrey. You." How had he forgotten that?

Snape got to his feet, struggling to make his face impassive. "Yes. I knew the counterspell."

Draco had spent years bullying his fellow Slytherins. He had observed his father closely. He felt the power shift between them and wondered suddenly why Snape ... "What are you hiding from me?"

"Your wounds are healed..." Snape began.

"No. About before." Draco stood, too, and noticed that he was actually an inch or so taller than the potions master. He took a step forward and was gratified to see Snape shrink back infinitesimally before he straightened. "You're hiding something from me."

Snape narrowed his eyes, as if measuring Draco somehow. "Very well. Had you heard the Sectum Sempra incantation before?"

"No. Never."

"You wouldn't have. Only two people--now three--knew of it. Potter, and myself."

Draco frowned, but before he could challenge Snape's story, Snape went on. "I invented that spell myself. Potter learned of it from notes of mine that came accidentally into his hands."

"So, he didn't know what it would do," Draco concluded, remembering Potter's look of shock and horror. "Gods, I knew Potter was a fool, but I had no idea..." He looked back at Snape, though. He would pursue his line of thought about Harry Potter later. "So you knew it, and you knew how to undo it."

"Exactly." The look on Snape's face said he considered the matter closed.

Draco did not. "You're hiding something else."

Snape tried reasserting his dominant position. "Mr. Malfoy, I have no idea why you have decided to interrogate me, but ..."

Draco feigned a headache then, doubling partly over and pressing his hand to his forehead. And when Snape, predictably, caught hold of him, asking what was wrong, Draco deftly picked the wand out of the older man's hand. "Legilimens!"

Snape was caught unawares, unable to close his mind completely to Draco's surprise attack. And even the most accomplished occlumens may have trouble hiding certain things he may deep down want to confess. Draco found what he was looking for quickly, for what he was seeking was himself. No sooner had he touched the memory in Snape's mind than the locked memory in his own mind sprang free.

Draco took two steps backward and fell hard into the chair, catching the writing desk with one hand, his eyes wide open but not seeing this room, not seeing the man who now turned away from him, instead seeing that day at Hogwarts. The blood spurting into the water in the boys lavatory, Snape cradling him, his brow furrowed in concentration as he spoke the countercurse, siphoning away the blood and sealing the wounds. Draco had been conscious through it all, but the memory had been... suppressed? obscured? Snape's argument with Potter, the race to the hospital wing...

Snape's voice as he ran, carrying Draco's limp body, "Foolish, foolish, hang on Draco, I have you, I have you." And the feeling of Snape's lips against his forehead, kissing him, again and again. 

And then, later, in the hospital wing, when Draco feigned sleep as Snape came to sit beside his bed. "Draco Malfoy, you will be the death of me." Draco had shifted then, as if having a dream, and then settled into a pattern of deep breathing. "Sleep well, Slytherin prince," Snape said then, "find peace from your troubles for another hour." Reliving the memory now, Draco re-experienced the surprise he had felt that Snape would be such a poet. "You have trials ahead of you, Draco. Why won't you allow me to help you? I want nothing more than to be at your side."

Snape, the confessor at the bedside when he thought the one he spoke to lay unconscious. "You're not a boy anymore. I know it well. Perhaps too well. You've turned into a fine young man, Draco. And I'm a fool, a fool." And again, that kiss on the forehead, his lips lingering in the soft fringe of Draco's blond hair, brushing his skin before drawing away. And then, was Snape crying?

Draco looked up, then, blinking his eyes in Snape's hideaway, to find Snape was indeed crying. His heart raced. Snape's babying of him was suddenly explained. As well as his stiffness and hesitation earlier. 

And the ward on the door, too? Draco's question, about why Snape had obliviated his memory, moved aside for a more pressing one. "How long?" Draco asked.

Snape's back was to him, but he straightened his shoulders. 

"How long have you felt this way?" Draco didn't mean for it to sound like an accusation, but even though his voice was soft, Snape looked like he had been stung. 

"Since you turned seventeen. last year."

"How did you know...?"

"Your father and I have known each other for many years, Draco. Who do you think it was who made the potion that saved you from the fever you had when you were five? The fever that kept you from starting school until a year later than usual?" Snape's voice had returned to its normal tone, and he wiped his face on his sleeve, but did not turn around. He also seemed to feel that, having revealed he knew at least one of Draco's secrets, that he had regained the upper hand. "Put that robe back on."

"No." Draco leaned back against the chair, now, tapping Snape's wand against the desk top. "No, I want you to look at me."

Snape set his shoulders again. "I think it would be best if you got dressed, Mr. Malfoy..."

"It's Draco. Let me hear you say it."

"What is it you wish me to say?"

"My name." Draco stood up, and moved in close behind the older wizard, close enough that he knew Snape could feel his breath on the back of his neck. "Say it like you said it when you were carrying me to Pomfrey. 'Draco, Draco...'"

"Stop it!" Snape whirled, his face suffused with emotion, and he grabbed at Draco's wand hand. "I will not have you toying with me!"

They fought for the wand, all four of their hands gripping the slender wood, but Draco had the leverage of his feet and pushed Snape back. The two of them fell to the Persian carpet, Draco on top, and he felt his erection crushed between his naked belly and the black of Snape's robes. "You know what McGonagall told me once during a detention?" Draco said, as he finally wrested the wand back and held it pointed at Snape's oversized nose. "She told me the reason I'm a bully is because of how I have been bullied and mistreated in my life." He laughed at that. "She told it to me like she was revealing a great secret to me, a great piece of wisdom." He laughed again, enjoying the feeling of his hardness against Snape. "Did she really think I didn't know? I knew that." He pressed himself harder, pushing his upper body up with one arm.

"So what do you think I'm going to do to make up for the bullying and mistreatment I've suffered today?" Draco pressed the wand under Snape's chin. 

"I tried to protect you..." Snape began.

"Oh I heard, the ward on my door. What did you do to my skin, you pervy bastard?"

What color had come into Snape's face during the struggle now drained away. "I told you. My intent was to protect you from the others..."

"But it didn't work, did it? Why didn't you tell me to keep my wand with me at all times, you obfuscating old fool?" Draco began to rub against Snape in earnest as his anger grew hotter. "Why didn't you teach ME the warding charm, so I could use it myself?"

"It doesn't work that way," Snape said, his teeth clenched. 

"What do you mean? One flick of your wand and it was like they couldn't touch me."

"I know." Snape struggled to get out from under his former student, then, but failed. Draco held him fast. "It's because I... I got the idea from Dumbledore. I used my own... feelings for you to create a shield charm. I hoped it would work when I was not present, but it did not."

"Your feelings for me."

"Please, Draco..."

"Oh, I like the way that sounds. Say that again."

"Draco! Get off me! Stop this immediately!"

"Stop what?" Draco now straddled the prone professor, and sat up straight, his rampant penis sitting up with him. "Have you got a potion that will fix this, then?" He wrapped his fingers around the shaft and pumped it. 

Snape's voice nearly hissed through his teeth as he replied. "And you called them evil."

That brought Draco up short, but only for moment. "Heed your own warnings, you poxy bugger. Is this what it means to be a Death Eater? How am I doing now?" He waved Snape's wand experimentally.

"Listen to me, Draco. You've had a very difficult day. And you're right. There are many things I should have told you sooner. Much sooner." Snape looked into Draco's eyes, never letting his eyes stray from Draco's face, down to where their bodies met. "I can understand if my feelings for you are... unwelcome. They are certainly inappropriate. I owe you many apologies. But are you so determined to make an enemy of me?"

Draco's hands paused in their motions, and he thought for a moment. "Are you saying you're sorry?"

Snape gritted his teeth. "Yes. For all that has happened today, and this year, and for what is yet to come. I am truly sorry. Now, will you let me get up?"

Draco shook his head. "It's not fair, you know."

"What isn't fair," Snape said, trying to get out from under his former protégé and failing again. 

"I finally meet someone who loves me for who I am, not for who my father is or for my money, and it... I... I..." Now he did get up, took a few steps away from Snape, and fell to his knees. Where the tears came from, he didn't know. A year's worth of fear that his mother or his father might be killed, a year's worth of worry that the plan might not succeed, a year of feeling utterly alone and unloved, it suddenly came pouring out of him. That little scene with the Death Eaters in the parlor? Malfoy realized he could forget it in a heartbeat. It was but a drop in the bucket, and he was crying buckets now. 

And then Snape was there, draping the robes carefully, as if from a great distance, over his shoulders. Draco barely felt him lift the wand out of his hand. 

Draco expected him to leave, then. To disapparate, flee. But Snape moved the chair to the far corner of the room--which admittedly was not very far--and sat. 

When Draco's storm of crying passed, he pulled the robes tight around him and sat up. He turned and saw Snape had conjured a pot of tea and two cups on the writing desk. Draco stood and buttoned the robes one button at a time, then combed his fingers through his flaxen hair. "Why are you still being so kind to me?" he asked Snape. 

"I thought you might like some tea," Snape said, his voice and face flat. 

And you're still in love with me, Draco thought, even though I've just acted like a right bastard to you. And even though you never used the word "love." He wondered how far he could push things. If he picked up the tea pot and smashed it against the wall, would Snape merely conjure another? Draco took the pot in hand and poured two cups.

"Here." He thrust one of them at Snape, who took it without meeting his eyes. Draco cradled the other in his hands and sat on the bed. "Now tell me where we are."

Snape moved to the chair of the writing desk and sipped his tea. "You have no doubt noticed by now that this room has no door."

"I had."

Snape wanted to be able to terrify Draco, to threaten to leave him here in a room he couldn't escape, but he found he couldn't. "We're underground, twenty feet down, just outside of Hogsmeade."

Draco raised an eyebrow. "Who else knows about this place?"

"No one. Only I can apparate in or out."

"Wards?"

"No. Because only I know where we are. Have you ever tried blind apparition, Mr. Malfoy?"

So, we're back to formal terms again. Draco let it pass. "Point taken. How long are we going to stay here?"

Snape took another swallow of tea. "I hadn't really thought that far ahead."

Draco couldn't keep the sneer out of his voice. "What do you mean?"

"My main concern was for your immediate rescue. I'm afraid I did not plan beyond that."

Draco nodded to himself. "So there was no summons from the Dark Lord."

"Not yet. But it will be coming."

"Then I have a plan."

Snape's eyebrows arched.

"First, we have to go back to the safe house and get my wand."

"I shall handle that," Snape began, but Draco cut him off. 

"No. you're not leaving me here to rot. We're going back together, and then we're going to give those Death Eaters something to remember me by." Draco's anger, which had been running hot earlier, now ran cold. 

"Very well," Snape said. "But may I make a suggestion?"

"You may."

"We cannot simply march in there wands ablaze. Draco, please, if it is to be revenge, let us plan it carefully. Wait for the right moment, and then act." Snape put down his teacup.

"So, you're with me, then." Draco watched to see if Snape hesitated.

He did not. "Of course I am. In fact, I think there are a few more incantations I should teach you before we go."

* * *   
It was far from their first private lesson. Snape had been teaching Draco on the side ever since the boy's first year at Hogwarts. The professor remembered the ill-fated dueling club of Gilderoy Lockhart's. A pity that hadn't worked out better as Draco had shown a real knack for it. Snape could not have been the one to propose such a thing, especially if it turned into a chance for his prize pupil to manhandle the others. But when Lockhart had brought it up, well... Snape had taught Draco the Serpentsortia charm, and he had been amazed to find the boy could cast it so strongly, animating a rather impressive snake for such a young wizard. 

Draco threw himself into learning the new spells with equal zeal. He was actually quite a gifted wizard, much more so than his father, who had relied on money, position, and influence for his success. Lucius did have some gifts with the dark arts, but Draco had more natural magical talents. 

Snape would have gladly spent all day, a week even, coaching him this way, but their absence was sure to be missed soon. And Draco would do even better with his own wand.

They apparated directly into Draco's room, and there was the wand, where he had left it on the side table. The young wizard blushed as he went to pick it up. For all his bluster to Snape, he knew he should not have left it there. Snape doubted he would willingly put it down again. As his hand closed around it, Draco gasped.

Snape felt the pull, too. "So, the summons comes at last," he said. "The others will have to wait."

Draco nodded, his throat closed suddenly. He took hold of Snape's arm, closed his eyes, and held his breath.

Before he opened his eyes, he could smell the place they had landed. It wasn't a smell Draco recognized, but it made him want to gag. Putrid and sweet at the same time, a smell that his brain told him was simply wrong. He opened his eyes, clamping his jaw shut, and saw they were inside a torch-lit stone building. 

No, not a building, a tomb. There, in front of a sarcophagus upon a pedestal, was the Dark Lord. Wormtail sat at his feet, the look in his eye not quite sane. There did not appear to be anyone else there, though Draco did not think it wise to try to look behind him. Snape had dropped to one knee, and Draco hastily imitated him. 

"Rise, my servants, and welcome to Grindelwald's tomb." Voldemort said, his voice soft yet perfectly clear in the dead air. "You have done well."

Snape's face was impassive, but Draco stuttered as he got to his feet, "You know...?"

"Your work with the cabinet was exemplary, young Malfoy. I will commend you for that. But I see the questions in your eyes. Yes, I know what happened on the Astronomy Tower." Voldemort stepped down from the pedestal and began walking around the two wizards in a leisurely circle. "You fear that I took your measure and that I find you wanting." The Dark Lord clucked his tongue as he came around behind Draco. "But it never occurred to you, young Malfoy, that perhaps it was another's measure I took by setting you to that task."

Voldemort now circled around Snape, who stood erect and stone-faced. The former professor did not speak. 

"May I see your wand?" Voldemort said, and held out his hand. 

"Certainly, my Lord," Snape said, drawing it from the pocket in his robes and handing it, handle first, to the Dark Lord. 

Voldemort hissed as he pressed the wand to his cheek, cradling it almost lovingly in his hands. "So this is the instrument of Dumbledore's destruction! Ah, I can almost taste the bitter tinge of the old man's soul clinging to the wood."

Draco stared. The previous time he had been in Voldemort's presence had been when he took the Dark Mark, but there had been a dozen new recruits there, and the other Death Eaters. Now, with just Snape and he and the Dark Lord, he found his heart hammering in his throat and he didn't know where to put his eyes. He felt a little ill. He had just been holding that wand himself an hour ago. Could some of Dumbledore's spirit be...?

Voldemort was now sniffing the wand with his snake-like nose. "Hmm, busy, busy, quite a battle you had, my servant," the Dark Lord said, his eyebrows raised in question at Snape.

"I have been teaching the boy," Snape said in reply. 

"Indeed?" Voldemort's eyes returned to Draco.

Surely, Draco thought, surely he can't smell what spells have been used? What would the warding charm smell like? 

"Perhaps, young Malfoy, you would like to offer us a demonstration of your skills?" Voldemort's eyes glinted red in the torchlight. "Wormtail, come here."

Pettigrew was truly pathetic, Draco thought. The man, if he could be called such, could barely stand straight, and he didn't so much breathe as snivel constantly. He approached hesitantly.

Snape opened his mouth to speak but Voldemort silenced him with a hand in the air. "Come, now, young man, show us something that will amuse us."

Draco drew his wand and took a deep breath. Perhaps it was something about being so close to Voldemort, perhaps it was adrenaline, but he could feel his power more strongly than usual. What did the Dark Lord want to see? 

"Imperio," he said and pointed his wand at Wormtail. The wizened little man was now in his thrall. But what to do with him? Make him dance the tarantella? An idea came to him, something his father used to make the house elves do, but the thought of Pettigrew coming near him was repulsive to him. Instead, he made him drop to his knees and crawl to Professor Snape's feet. There he kissed Snape's boots, then drew back. Draco released the spell and glanced at the Dark Lord to see if he had done well.

"Hardly a challenge," Voldemort said to Snape, as if Draco were not listening. "Wormtail acts like that anyway."

"I had Rosmerta under Imperius most of last year," Draco said, stung by the criticism. 

Voldemort chuckled. "Impressive," he said, the condescension dripping from his voice. "But I would like to see if you might be able to be a bit more aggressive, young Malfoy. That was your father's weakness, in the end. Never wanted to get his hands dirty. Always wanted someone else to do the deed." Voldemort gestured to Wormtail who drew a wand from his pocket. 

Draco's wand hand shook. So the mission to kill Dumbledore had been a test after all. 

"I assume," Voldemort said to Snape, "that the boy has been taught proper dueling procedure?"

"I assure you he has, my Lord," Snape replied, his eyes unreadable.

"Excellent. Wormtail, bow to your opponent."

Draco and Pettigrew bowed to each other, then walked to opposite ends of the crypt. Draco turned and shouted "Expelliarmus!" but Pettigrew had already ducked and shot a silent curse at Draco. His aim was poor though, as his main goal had been to avoid being disarmed, and a section of stone behind Draco shattered. Wormtail was serious. He hadn't spoken the curse out loud, so Draco couldn't be sure what it was, but it could not have been nice.

Wormtail ran behind the sarcophagus and shot another curse at the young wizard, who deflected it. More stone went flying and Draco pressed himself against the other side of the stone resting place, wondering if it was truly the dark wizard Grindelwald. Funny how his brain could latch onto a detail like that, even while he was straining to detect where Pettigrew was. He couldn't stay put, Pettigrew would be coming around, but which side? 

Suddenly he felt a searing pain in his leg, as if he were on fire. Wormtail had climbed right over the top and had his wand aimed downward. Draco reached up and grabbed him by the shirt collar, and with a pull, flung Pettigrew to the floor. The burning sensation stopped the moment Pettigrew went flying, but Draco found his leg a little numb as he regained his feet. The little bastard! The pain had driven any thoughts of fear out of Draco's head and replaced them with pure anger. Wormtail was fast, though, and scampered behind Snape. 

"Crucio!" he squeaked, but the curse missed Draco as Snape fussed, trying to shoo him away. The rat man ran for the corner now, and the statue there, but Draco's shot was clear.

"Petrificus!" Draco shouted, and Wormtail fell as his legs froze, even as his arms flailed for balance. "Levicorpus!" His body shot into the air as if dragged by a rope around his ankle and he squealed. "Sectum Sempra!" Draco slashed his wand upward.

Wormtail's scream was worse than the blood, which sprayed everywhere. It made Draco want to clap his hands over his ears. It was inhuman. 

So was Voldemort's laughter. "Well done, well done young Malfoy." And then he was there, in front of Draco, his red, slit-pupiled eyes searching Draco's for something. 

"Snape can fix him, if you want," Draco said, not sure now where the feeling of confidence he had came from. "I didn't want to kill him in case you needed him."

"Oh, Wormtail has been quite useful to me, assuredly so," Voldemort hissed. "I am quite satisfied with your demonstration. That is an incantation I shall have to remember."

"One of my favorites," Draco said, still not quite believing that he was now bantering with the Dark Lord. He was distantly shocked to hear how much his voice sounded like his father's when speaking to high ranking ministers and the like. "Snape is an excellent instructor."

"I am pleased that you have benefited from his tutelage," the Dark Lord said. "Return to the others and await my next instructions."

"Yes, my Lord," Draco said, realizing that Voldemort was giving these orders to him, not to Snape, who was busy tending to Pettigrew's gruesome wounds. The moment stretched out and Draco realized he had been dismissed. He concentrated on the room in the house where he had slept. Could he apparate directly there? Surely he could. He pictured the room, the tea pot on the side table, and stepped through spacetime to get there.

* * *   
Hunger finally drove Draco out of his room at dinner time. He startled Yaxley, who was sitting in the kitchen reading a two-day old Daily Prophet. "Gods blood, boy, when did you get back?"

"Just now," Draco lied. There had been no sign of Snape and Draco suppressed his worry. "What is there to eat in this place?" He pulled open the ice box to find what looked like vial upon vial of dragon blood. In the door was a square of the hardened rind of some cheese, and on the counter was the heel of the bread they had burned at breakfast. Draco sat down across from Yaxley with both and began to gnaw at them. 

"Where's Snape?" Yaxley asked, pretending not to look up from the newspaper. 

"Still with Him," Draco answered. His hand twitched, remembering his earlier fantasies of disemboweling the other Death Eaters, and what he had done to Pettigrew. He found he had lost what appetite he had. It wasn't that Pettigrew didn't deserve it, the evil little thing, and it wasn't as if Draco really had a choice. If he had done any less, Voldemort would not have been pleased. He was sure of that. 

He took the remains of his sorry meal back to his room. He still didn't know where they were, yet he had been able to apparate there, because he had been there before. Could he apparate to Snape's underground hideaway, too? The Dark Lord had told him to return to the house, but could he take a quick trip there, just to borrow a book or two? He remembered the low shelf, the leatherbound volumes there, and wondered what he might learn from the books Snape would have hidden away in the bunker. 

Ten minutes later he had returned with two books under his arm. One answered the question of how the tea cozy worked and how to conjure not only magical tea but other foodstuffs, very handy if one is going to be in hiding indefinitely. The other was a heavy old thing, with a cracked black leather cover and locking strap on which Draco could just make out the embossed words "grimoire" and "sang." When he attempted to open the book, it would not open until he pricked his finger on the lock accidentally--at which it sprang open. Of course, he thought. The Grimoire of Blood requires a sacrifice. 

He stayed up reading it half the night, and still Snape did not return. 

* * *   
Three days later and Draco had read the entire Grimoire. In it he even found the warding charm Snape had used on him, and knew now why it had been ineffective when Snape himself was not present, as well as how to fix that. Draco returned the book and exchanged it for another, a hand-lettered volume entitled Nocturnum Minarum, which appeared to be an ancient defense against the dark arts book with spells for fighting vampires and ghouls. No wonder Snape had these books hidden away--some of them one could probably land in Azkaban just for owning. At least Nocturnum Minarum did not demand he cut himself every time he opened it. 

Meanwhile, he ventured out among the other Death Eaters a few times. Mostly he kept to his room, feeding himself with the domestic spellbook he kept, but he went out several times mostly to see if the others had heard from Snape. Draco kept expecting them to try to play those little parlor games with him again, but the Carrows and the others kept their distance. It took him a while to figure out why, and he eventually narrowed it down to two possibilities. The first was that maybe all new Death Eaters went through something like that. Hell, even his first year in Slytherin he'd been hazed. The second was that when they all thought he was in the doghouse for failing to kill Dumbledore, he had been easy game, but now that he had been to see the Dark Lord and apparently won his approval--given that he was still alive and walking among them--they weren't sure where they stood. The latter seemed more likely. Still, he never left his room without his wand. 

Seven days after Draco's meeting with Voldemort, Fenrir came to call. Draco was upstairs in his room, preparing a pot of chamomile, when he heard the howl from outside. He heard the rush of footsteps down the stairs as well and shouts and voices.

It wouldn't do to be holed up like a coward if something big were going on. Draco, wand in hand, rushed down after the others and found the Death Eaters all standing on the porch of the house, as if they were on the railing of a ship, looking out at the werewolf, transformed fully into his full moon form, prowling back and forth outside the picket fence. He had a sack thrown over one shoulder.

"Let me in, you cretins!" he said in a voice that was mostly growl.

"Snape set the wards, Fenrir," Alecto said. "Only he can undo them." She, like all of them, had their wands out. 

He let loose another howl and the sack began moving. It suddenly became clear to Draco what that shape was, a small person or a child, kicking its legs inside the sack. 

"Damn your wards!" Fenrir growled and leapt over the fence. Green sparks flew, and Fenrir yelped. He landed in the yard with his fur partly on fire, but he rolled in the grass until it was out, holding the bundle in his clawed hands. Now he tore the sack to shreds to expose a naked blond boy, probably not more than eight or nine years old. In the moonlight his hair shone white.

He cowered down, hid his head between his arms, and wailed. 

"Brat!" Fenrir struck the little figure. The boy fell over but choked off his cries.

Draco had leaped over the porch rail before he thought clearly about what he was doing. "You don't belong here, Fenrir," he said, pointing his wand at the werewolf, who now grabbed the child by the throat. "You'll bring trouble."

"Hrrr, now look who's a brat? Trouble am I?"

The other Death Eaters were shouting at him, now, as well, though Draco was the only one facing him down. 

"We're supposed to be hiding here," Draco hissed. "You'll bring half the Aurors in England down on us!"

"Aurors! Ha!" Fenrir howled again, and Draco decided he was quite mad. He shot a petrification charm at the werewolf, but Fenrir blocked with spell with the child's body. Draco saw the boy go rigid as Fenrir ran toward the back of the house. Draco gave chase. 

In the back, the trees cast moonshadows, but Draco could see the glint of Fenrir's eyes, and then hear the wet sound of something tearing. The others were in the kitchen now, looking out the windows.

Draco flicked his wand toward Fenrir and was rewarded with a yelp, followed by a growl. The werewolf left his prey then, and came stalking toward Draco, on all fours, snarling. 

Really, Fenrir never had a chance. Draco was too quick, his hexes and curses too well-placed, and too powerful, even though the werewolf was at the height of his powers. In mere seconds it was over, Fenrir gutted, immobilized, beheaded, and then immolated in a flash. Draco then obliterated even the ashes. 

The boy was dead, a little wandlight showed. Throat torn out. Draco obliterated the body as well, and then reset the wards on the fence. 

When he stepped inside they were all in the parlor, staring at him. No one said a word. Draco merely glared, then went back to his room, his face burning with a kind of grim satisfaction. No, there would be no more calling him a coward after that. And definitely no more of those parlor games.

* * *   
In the morning Draco swapped the book for another, and then went downstairs to see if last night's attitudes held. He was surprised to find the house empty. 

He crept silently through the rooms, suspicious they might be trying to ambush him, but there was no sign. Draco pulled up his sleeve, but his mark was quiescent, he had felt no summoning. There was no sign of any struggle--they must have all been called, except for him. He tamped down a prickle of suspicion. 

Out back, there were two burned patches in the grass. Draco charmed up some breakfast and sat alone eating it. He hadn't done it to try to save the boy. Thinking about it now, he realized they probably would have had to kill him themselves after he had dispatched Fenrir. He wasn't even sure if the boy had been wizard or muggle. 

Had the incident with Fenrir made this place unsafe? Was that why the others were gone? 

And why had it been so easy to kill Fenrir, when it had been impossible to kill Dumbledore? Draco's lip curled. Fenrir wasn't human. Neither was Pettigrew, really.

Nor was Voldemort, Draco realized. He wondered where his mother was. Had she gone into hiding? Would they have questioned her about her son's disappearance? Was she even in Azkaban now?

Those would have to be questions for later, when he had more information. Maybe Snape would know something. And where was Snape all this time?

It was some hours later, he felt the burning sensation in his arm, much stronger than he had ever felt it before. He could feel Voldemort's anger and outrage. But where was he? Draco assumed he must be at Grindelwald's tomb. Before he disapparated, he took a deep, calming breath. He closed his mind and readied himself. If the Dark Lord was angry, Draco did not want to add fuel to that fire. 

He apparated in the midst of a crowd of Death Eaters. Many of them were wearing their masks. The interior of the tomb had been magically enlarged so that the fifty or so witches and wizards did not crowd the place, but stood in a loose circle, two and three deep, around the place where Draco appeared. 

"Draco!" came a cry from a witch behind him. He recognized the voice of his aunt Bellatrix, and then her cloying perfume as she kissed him on the cheek, hugging him tightly. She opened her mouth to say something, but Draco saw her change her mind. She stepped back. "So good of you to join us. We've discovered a traitor in our midst."

She waved her arm toward the sarcophagus, and the circle parted a bit to reveal Voldemort, his back to them, applying some form of painful curse, Cruciatus probably, to a figure chained at the foot of the pedestal.

Draco stifled his gasp by sheer force of will. It was Snape. Snape was in manacles and leg irons, but the chains were slack as he writhed at the base of the stone. He went limp when the Dark Lord looked up to see Draco approaching. 

"Ah, young Malfoy, at last our number is complete." His snake-like face showed sorrow and he placed a hand on Draco's shoulder. "I have grave news for you, my boy. I wanted to be the one to tell you myself." He glanced back at Bellatrix and then focused once more on the young wizard in front of him. "I'm afraid your mother undertook a rather foolhardy course of action. She tried to rescue your father from Azkaban, and I am sorry to say they both perished in the process."

"To Lucius!" Someone in the circle shouted and there were answering cheers and the clinking of tankards. Apparently this was the Death Eaters' idea of a wake and a party all at once.

"I... thank you for telling me," Draco said, his mouth acting on years of society training rather than conscious thought. He couldn't process the information that his parents were gone, not when his eyes were full of the image of Snape, naked, bruised and bleeding, in chains at his feet. "I guess my aunt Bella is all I have now."

"We are your family now," Voldemort said, with a final pat on Draco's shoulder.

Draco swallowed, trying to shrug off the feeling that Voldemort was somehow pleased with this state of affairs, that he might have even arranged it.

"Yes, such a fine wizard you have grown to be, Draco Malfoy. Your father would have been quite proud, I am sure." Voldmort's eyes gleamed as if Draco were a shiny new knife pulled fresh from its sheath. 

"So, Snape is a traitor?" Draco said, mostly to change the subject from himself to someone else.

"Yes, once my enforcer, then my mole, now the time of his usefulness is at an end," the Dark Lord said. "He used to be the one to deal out punishment among the Death Eaters. Wonderful, sadistic mind he has. Or, had." Voldemort chuckled and Draco wondered how long Snape had been under cruciatus. "But killing Dumbledore was the last task I needed from him. Now that Dumbledore is gone"--Voldemort took a deep breath as if he enjoyed the scent of Dumbledore-free air--"this pathetic creature is of no use as a spy. He believed me fooled all along, the double--or is it triple?--agent." Voldemort slid the wand Draco recognized as Snape's out of his black robe. "Would you like to try something exceedingly delicious? Try casting Cruciatus on him with his own wand."

Draco took the wand gingerly in his fingers. The wand that had killed Dumbledore. Aware that Voldemort was watching him closely, as well as Bellatrix and many of the others, he hefted the wand as if testing its balance. The incantation came out no more than a whisper, but the effect was immediate. Snape writhed and screamed. Draco, for his part, felt a flushing sensation throughout his body, a rush of power unlike any he had experienced so far. 

He blinked and broke the spell, and looked up at Voldemort who was laughing. "Lovely, was it not?"

He did not explain. Draco did not know if casting cruciatus on any wizard with his own wand would have such an effect, or if this was a special property of Snape's wand. Perhaps it was from being Voldemort's "enforcer." He was not about to ask. He also realized that underneath his robes, the rush of power had caused his erection to rise. 

"Time for me to take a bit of respite," the Dark Lord then said.

"Master, allow me!" Bellatrix said, holding her hand toward Draco, reaching for the wand.

"No, Bella, let the boy do it." Voldemort indicated with a flick of his finger that Draco should carry on. Draco recalled Snape's words--the Dark Lord delegated certain tasks to others.

Draco answered with a bare nod, and stepped closer to where Snape was struggling to sit up. 

The chains were longer than Draco had first realized and were obviously ensorcelled against disapparition. Draco made a show of checking Snape's bonds, while giving himself time to think. The Principia Nocturnalis had mentioned a technique, but Draco had not practiced it and was not sure he could do it. And yet, it was worth a try. Cruciatus, effective though it was as a form of torture, made for a boring show. If he was to act like the Dark Lord's new enforcer, he would have to come up with something else. 

Yes, of course, he had to try it. A little cruciatus first though, to make sure they saw he was serious. He spoke the word aloud, "crucio," even while preparing another spell in his mind. He had always wondered, could a wizard say one spell but think another and which was the more important? The answer could only be found in books like the ones Snape had hidden away.

Snape writhed but managed to look Draco in the eye. Could he feel what was happening? Draco had no way to communicate with him, a whisper wouldn't escape the notice of the Dark Lord. Draco banished the thought of what would happen if he failed. Instead he concentrated on the words forming in his mind.

As long as they were on Unforgivables, he cast Imperius and made Snape crawl toward him, chains dragging, then turn around and kneel, presenting his back to Draco. "Flagello," he said, drawing his wand downward with a sharp motion. Snape's back arched and Draco was only half-surprised to see a welt rise across the pale skin. He did it again, criss-crossing the first mark with the second. He could almost see the magical whiptail that emanated from his wand.

"You see, Bella, I told you he would be a natural." 

Draco heard the Dark Lord's voice as he and Bella receded into the group behind. Draco whipped Snape until the man began to cry out, and then he did it a bit longer because he did not want it to seem as if he stopped out of sympathy. 

Now he had to know if his underlying incantation were taking hold. Remembering how the Death Eaters had treated him that day in the parlor, he went and grabbed Snape by the hair. Snape's hair seemed to crackle under his fingers, but if anyone other than Draco noticed the golden sparks, they said nothing. Draco drew out his own wand for this, pulling Snape's head back and exposing his throat. 

"Insculpo sectis" Draco said, loud enough that the nearest Death Eater could hear, and he drew the tip of his wand over Snape's sternum, and saw the thin red line appear. The golden light that flowed down Draco's wand flickered only briefly, while the cutting he made in Snape's skin bloomed red and began to bleed. There were cheers and whistles from the assembled.

And now to seal it, Draco thought. He wrapped his hands around Snape's chest, and bit him gently on the neck. Snape's body reacted, arching his back as much in surprise as anything else. Draco did not bite hard, but the Death Eaters did not know that. He sucked gently and felt Snape relax a little in his arms. 

He opened his robes, his hands trembling as he sought to get his trousers open while still holding both wands, the words still going through his mind: aegis cintum obligatus armorum, aegis cintum obligatus armorum... Snape turned his head and met his eye. Understanding passed between them and Draco pointed his wand at Snape as if putting him under Imperius once again.

He took a step back and Snape crawled toward him under his own power, then put a hand on his testicles, then his mouth over Draco's erection. 

Draco nearly dropped the wands. He had never known a touch quite like that in his life. It wasn't just the wetness, the softness, the exquisite way Snape worked his tongue along the underside even as he dipped his head to take as much of Draco into him as he could. It was the intent, the loving intensity, the hunger, that nearly made Draco falter. To think that this was a touch the Dark Lord could not tolerate, that love could be made into a shield against his power...

Draco had both wands in one hand and the other pressed against the back of Snape's head. Snape looked up at him and Draco could see the golden glow now in his eyes. The warding was almost complete. Snape closed his eyes as he redoubled his efforts, and Draco could not hold out any longer. He began to come, Snape swallowing as quickly as he could, and Draco realized that was his own voice screaming as he came. He was answered by cheers. 

Snape broke away then, and Draco had to steady himself on his feet. "Wormtail," he said, for Pettigrew had been close by watching the entire scene. "Can these chains be removed? I want... better access to him."

"Oh yes, here, I can do that," Wormtail said, scampering behind the sarcophagus and returning with a small golden hammer. He tapped twice at the base of the chains, saying "catenus cessus." 

The chains fell away, and Draco held Severus to him. He had never been the apparator in a side-along apparition, but now was not the time to lose his nerve. He pictured the windowless room, the bed, the books, and in a blink they were gone.

* * *   
They landed in a tangle on the Persian carpet, Draco dropping one wand in the process. He lit the room with the other--his own--and then dropped it as well. Severus did not look well. He lifted him onto the bed, where his former professor lay looking lifeless except for the minute movements of his rib cage as he breathed. 

The bookshelf held no books on healing, but Draco repeated the words he had heard in his once-obliviated memory, and sealed up the shallow wound he had made on Snape's chest. The burns, too, that he could handle. 

But Cruciatus had no cure, other than Draco's speculations about the warding spell he had used. If something was broken in the man's spirit, it was pure speculation that a love-based shield charm might help to heal it. He reached out and brushed the hair from Severus' face, then leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead. Snape did not react, did not move, his eyes still closed.

"My turn to be the confessor at the bedside," Draco said, his voice sounding large in the small room. "Did you ever guess how I felt about you when I was eleven, twelve years old? I don't think you did. I certainly never let on to you, or to myself really, but at that age, what do you really know? I simply thought you were the greatest. I'd do anything you said. It was hero worship. I used to make up stories for myself about the two of us, roaming the countryside on adventures. Stupid stuff. I got over it quick. I once spoke too effusively of you at home and was soundly disabused of the notion that you would be a help to me. My aunt already didn't trust you, and my father was on the fence, waiting to see where the chips would fall."

Draco realized his robes and undone trousers were bloody and he shucked them off. He climbed into bed next to Severus. "Well, trying to please him is now over and done with, isn't it? My ambitions are not to rule the world, if it means ruling that lot. Voldemort would just as soon snap my neck as give me power, don't you think?"

"Is that what turned you into a traitor to the dark, Severus? Did you, like me, suddenly decide that wasn't the life you wanted?"

There was still no reaction from the inert body. Draco hugged him close. He reached for his wand. "Unguenis," he muttered, then went on with his speech. "It's unfair that you're unconscious for all this, Severus, but I know you knew what was happening in the end. I looked up that warding charm you had tried to put on me, but you know why it didn't work the way you wanted, don't you? You needed to apply it more... intimately." He worked his fingers between the man's legs. "I thought it was quite clever of me to be casting the warding at the same time as torturing you.

"But it will all be for naught if you die or go insane now, won't it?" He rubbed his slick fingers up and down his cock and it responded. "Come on, Severus, wake up."

He positioned himself to enter Snape's limp form, nibbling him on the neck and then kissing him on the lips as he pushed with increasing force. Then all at once, he slid in, the body under him convulsed, and the mouth on his was kissing back.

"Draco..." the man said, when he broke away for a breath.

"Shut up," Draco answered. "Please, don't fight it."

"Why would I..."

"I said 'shut up.' We'll talk about it later." For Draco, talking was becoming increasingly difficult. He found himself clenching muscles in his stomach he didn't know he had as he thrust into Severus. He swore and clawed at the other man's shoulders, and bit him on the neck, a bit harder than he had back at the tomb but the reaction was the same, arching pleasure. 

He wrapped his fingers around Severus' cock now, pumping in time with his thrusts. It wasn't long after that Draco's hips began to jerk out of control, and he came, his frantic movements setting off an orgasm for his partner as well. Draco held himself up on one arm long enough to collapse to the side. And then, though he felt he couldn't really move, he spoke. "Are you all right?"

"I am quite well, thank you, Draco." Neither of them could move, it seemed. 

"I think we should sleep," Draco said. "Don't you think?"

"An admirable idea."

Draco curled toward him then, threw one arm over him protectively, and did just that.

* * *   
When he woke, Draco had no idea whether it was night or day. The illumination charms were still burning in the windowless room, and he could not tell if they had slept an hour, or six. He looked at the sleeping form under his arm. The potions master looked younger, less worn by time and experience, while he slept. Severus was only what--thirty-something?--but he acted like he was ancient most of the time. But, Draco thought, spending time with Voldemort and the Death Eaters certainly did age a person quickly.

"Severus," he said softly, suddenly afraid that when Snape awoke, he would be "Mr. Malfoy" again.

"Draco," came the answer, and an arm pulled him close. "Thank you." A few moments of languid warmth passed and then the older man sat up. He seemed to want to say something, but nothing came out of his mouth.

Draco couldn't stand the silence and talked to fill it. "I went as soon as I received the summoning signal," he said. "But you had been there for a week already..."

"I was not imprisoned the entire week," Severus said. "I did think it curious that He summoned the others first, to have their way with me, before he called you, though."

"I would have come sooner if I had known." Draco sat up himself, resting his head on his knees. 

"You cannot blame yourself for something you had no control over." Severus thinned his lips in what passed for a smile. "It was an admirable rescue."

"I had been reading your books," Draco said. "The Grimoire of Blood, and others. And it was just the first thing I thought of, binding the warding charm on you. I wasn't sure I could do it while... while torturing you at the same time. But it worked." Malfoy suddenly blushed. "Now that I think about it, I might have been able to ask Wormtail to get you out of the chains first, and then I could have just apparated us here and you wouldn't have needed the warding..."

"I doubt they would have been convinced. And I needed healing. You did well." The older wizard slid from the bed then and stood facing his former student. "But you must be wanting to know how I ended up in that position."

Draco frowned. "No, I don't. I don't care whose side you were on. What matters to me is that you were on MY side." He felt his heart beat harder in his chest. "And I on yours. That's the loyalty that matters to me most, Severus."

Snape shivered at the sound of his name. "I'm twice your age."

"That is not being debated right now." Draco stood, too. "We need each other; we stand together. And do you really think with Voldemort on the loose anyone in the wizarding world gives a flying fig about the difference in our ages? We're not welcome anywhere, Severus. Aurors would kill us on sight. Death Eaters, too."

"You may be right."

"I know I am."

The older wizard sat on the edge of the bed tiredly. Later, when they had both recovered somewhat, he would broach the subject of the Order of the Phoenix and the possibility of fighting the Dark Lord. Not now. "So, what is your plan, then?"

"We're staying here until you teach me what is in the rest of those books. Then we'll run. We can set up a flying carpet shop... in Morocco or somewhere. One thing at a time." Draco ran a hand through his hair. "And of course, we'll need to strengthen the warding charms. Mine still only works if you're present, you know."

"I know." Snape looked at him hungrily, and Draco drank in the feeling of being wanted, needed, loved. "I'll gladly remedy that, if you'll let me."

Draco answered with a kiss, which was much simpler than trying to think of anything more to say. 

-end-


End file.
